When I first encountered this proverbial phrase, I was heavily inclined to react against it. The obvious nature of a classroom, I thought, does not support this proverb, if it is one. However, serious consideration began to offer more and more insight into the classroom and the extremely important role of the teacher in relation to the curriculum, but at the end of the day, I still generally considered this idea that the teacher is the curriculum to be untrue.
I was certain that students learn from teachers but also certain that the curriculum is obviously distinct from the teacher. Students learn from books: literature books, chemistry books, math books, spelling books…. They even learn with a substitute teacher present; therefore, the classroom teacher cannot be the curriculum. The curriculum and the teacher are clearly not the same thing. I believed that a classical school is not made up of its teachers; important as they are to the institution, it is made up of its contents. A tour of a classical school rarely introduces parents to a teacher, and few schools give parents the opportunity to sit and converse with them, because the teacher is not the curriculum, and the teacher is not the school. His or her instruction affects the curriculum, but it is ridiculous to think that the teacher is the curriculum!
It is not ridiculous. I have come to believe that a classical school is only as classical as the teachers within its walls. No classical school that wishes to be a flagship program, no matter how polished or well marketed, or full of classical books, will ever advance beyond the “classicalness” of its teachers. Indeed, there are some classical schools which, apart from their names, no one would notice had ever been, or wanted to be, classical. In contrast, there are some schools, no matter their names, that are pedagogically classical, seeming odd to conventional college preparatory or generically Christian schools.
Every school that intends to be something will only be that thing to the degree that the teachers are that thing, so a classical school is only as classical as its teachers. While classical schools should love and teach old things, a classical school is not determined by its book list, and its curriculum does not determine the political, philosophical, or religious affiliation of the school. A book list will tell you something about the school, but it will not let you taste and see the kind of education that occurs on a Tuesday afternoon in Room 131. The book list is not the curriculum; the teacher is the curriculum.
The teacher is the curriculum because the teacher determines how the class is taught: what is praised, what is defamed, what emulation is encouraged, and what habits are maligned. The teacher should exemplify virtue, wisdom, and eloquence, and the students’ minds and souls can be transformed by interacting with the curriculum in community with their teachers, feeding on the truth, goodness, and beauty found there. The teacher is the filter for the content. The teacher colors the student’s perspective about the Inferno or quadratic equations. What good teachers love and do, they will teach their students to love and do. If your students love wisdom and long for Lady Philosophy, you can count on the fact that the teachers love wisdom and Lady Philosophy. On the other hand, if the students in your school value grades, it’s not because the wider culture is making your school “grade-oriented,” but because your teachers are grade-centered teachers.
What does this mean for hallways and classrooms? If the teacher is the curriculum, the mark of a classical school is its teachers. School leadership must be willing to hire classical thinkers. GPAs and career history are insufficient measurements for calculating the wisdom of a teacher. School leadership must hire deeply classical teachers, or they must invest the money, effort, and time to help train teachers up in classical pedagogy. A new teacher, handed a stack of books and a few quarter maps from the previous teacher, will shape that curriculum more than the curriculum will shape him. Therefore, school leadership must take the blame when a school is “not as classical as it ought to be,” or take the right steps to rectify itself.
Furthermore, teachers must recognize the obvious bearing they have in a classical classroom and stop blaming the culture for the grade-centered nature of their students. They should admit that students’ attitudes to grades are based largely on their own emphasis on grades. If the teacher is truly the curriculum, then classical faculties must recognize the great responsibility of teaching. The degree to which the teacher loves good, beautiful, and old ideas will be reflected in their students. The calling to be the curriculum is a monumental task before God and man. To paraphrase Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow, the calling to be the curriculum is “going to take your whole life” and “maybe even longer,” but it is the only calling for the teacher at a classical school.
